Centre for Civic Education (CCE) points to the problem of unpaid salaries to users of the “Professional Training Programme”, who have started working on 15 January, and whose employers have, until 4 February, submitted concluded contracts and reports on professional training to the authorized institutions, thus creating conditions for the payment of half-monthly compensation to these persons.
As a reminder, the Law on Professional Training for persons with acquired higher education stipulates the obligation of employers to submit reports on the performance of users to the Human Resources Administration and the Bureau of Employment, not later than until the end of the ongoing month, thus creating conditions for payment of compensations, which are paid by the tenth in the month, for the previous month. Programme users receive compensation amounting to 50% of the average salary in Montenegro for the previous year, and for the purpose of realization of this project, the Government has provided 10 million euros in 2013 year.
On the basis of the collected information collected, as well as from personal experiences of users doing an internship in this organization, CCE concludes that the Ministry of Finance failed to pay compensation to the Programme users whose employers have timely submitted the required documentation. Namely, for the users of the Programme, whose employers have timely submitted the documents (i.e. to the Bureau of Employment and the Human Resources Administration), the January fees are not paid even ten days after the deadline, which thereby violates the Law on Professional Training for persons with acquired higher education.
CCE appeals for the most serious possible manner in starting to solve this problem and opening question of identification of the responsibility for non-payment of compensations to the Professional Training Programme’s users who were in time to meet their obligations to the authorities concerned. This is particularly important in the context of open talks about manipulation with such programmes for the pre-election purposes, but also for the started presidential campaign.
Vladimir Vučković, Programme Assistant